On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 20:21:36 +0200 Kaj Haulrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Saturday 17 April 2004 19:47, Guy Rouillier wrote:
<snip>
So when you blather on about winsux and winblows, try to explain why for desktop users everything just seems to work in Windows, while Linux continues to be a challenge.
</snip>
.....such as viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, phone-home....?
Admitted, but that doesn't have anything to do with usability, consistency and device support, right? And don't get too comfortable, as soon as Linux gets enough penetration in the desktop market (which I definitely think it will - think of 1.3 billion users in China), the evil-doers will turn their attention on it. They've pretty much ignored it for now since they get so much more bang for the buck from Windows.
Yes, but how do you write a virus for linux that will get anywhere near the wide spread uptake that they do with windows??
What email app do you try to target??? with windows its easy, just target IE flaws and you get OE and lookout thrown in for free cos they use IE libs underneath..
on linux you have people using evolution, kmail, mozilla mail, thunderbird and half a dozen others.. and there is no concensus on which is the most popular.. (not to mention the fact that there are dozens of versions of the above clients out there being used right now..)
That goes for nearly every other linux app... I'd say that the only standardised software on linux desktop is the kernel and maybe openoffice now...
Then there is the problem that a file is not executable till someone makes it executable.... not insurmountable, but certainly a big issue.
following that is the fact that a unix/linux user isn't root and therefore any application running as that user can't trash the system.
I suspect that the only linux virus that will ever get anywhere will target servers running Apache or SSH or postfix etc..
and even then its not trouble free compared to windows.. for example, with windows we have win3.1, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and 2003
all are related and all (for the most part with the possible exception of 2003) backwards compatablee..
How many incremental versions of apache are there out in the wild now? how many SSH versions? ditto with pretty much every other software service that opens a port...
how do you target a virus when there is no real indication of what the target is???
I'm not saying that a linux virus is impossible, it clearly isn't.. I am saying that its never going to yeild the sort of results that windows virus's do even if linux ends up with 95% of the desktop market.. and it will likely have to contain allot more code then the current crop of windows virus's use to "do their thing".
-- rgds
Frank Hauptle (aka Franki)
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